tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post639355225137945948..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Matthew Paris as an ArtistJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-5110440117299557172022-07-29T00:33:11.917-04:002022-07-29T00:33:11.917-04:00This seems like a story that wandered in from the ...<i>This seems like a story that wandered in from the life of an earlier saint who lived in the Syrian or North African desert, since I am not sure anyone in Britain has ever died of thirst.</i><br /><br />Well, likely not many people who were in good health anyway. But in the past (as is still happening in the present, in hospitals all across Britain) I'm quite sure many sick and elderly died of thirst when others failed to help them fetch water.<br /><br />That said, even healthy people in Britain must have died of thirst from time to time. There are lots of desert islands in the British Isles where there's no fresh water, and periodically shipwrecked fishermen and sailors must have died of thirst waiting for rescue which never came.<br /><br />Of course, you need not go to Scilly to die of thirst in Britain - the Scottish Highlands are full of areas with little (accessible) water, or with small creeks that would, in fact, run dry during a period of drought like that in the miracle story.<br /><br />And that's not even the driest part of the isles - perhaps unexpectedly for non-natives, the overall driest part of Britain is the southeast, typically seeing less than 20 inches of rainfall annually in some parts - meaning those areas a actually a "semi-arid" climate, on par with places like Spain and the Western Rockies. A literal desert gets 10 inches or less, so we're talking pretty dry compared to most places.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-21568474957125526972022-07-28T23:56:47.662-04:002022-07-28T23:56:47.662-04:00Paris was a terrific writer – in fact he was too g...<i>Paris was a terrific writer – in fact he was too good of a writer, and kept adding things to his "chronicles" because they made the story better, for example, he is respondible for the notion that the participants in the Children's Crusade were sold into slavery by Venetians</i><br /><br />It's a bit darkly ironic, since the Venetians were the first nation ever to ban the slave trade, some two centuries before Paris was even born.<br /><br />(Though to be fair, it was just the ~trade~ at first - ownership of slaves was still legal, and one could acquire slaves through private treaty. But still, the idea of the Republic itself selling people into slavery ought to have been laughable.)G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com